Two Windsor police officers pleaded not guilty to Police Services Act charges related to their role in the investigation following a high-profile police brutality case and its alleged cover-up.

Staff Sgt. Paul Bridgeman pleaded not guilty to discreditable conduct and neglect of duty and Det. Kent McMillan pleaded not guilty to discreditable conduct and deceit at the first day of their trial Monday. The two officers were involved in the initial police investigation of an altercation between former detective David Van Buskirk and Tyceer Abouhassan, a visually impaired doctor, in the parking lot of the Jackson Park Health Centre on April 22, 2010.

Van Buskirk resigned from the force and was sentenced to five months in jail for assault causing bodily harm plus a concurrent 30-day sentence for public mischief after he mistook Abouhassan for a man who had approached his young daughter and severely beat him, leaving him with a concussion, a broken nose and a detached retina. Police initially charged Abouhassan with assaulting a police officer, but the Crown stayed that charge.

The Police Act charges against Bridgeman and McMillan are related to the investigation that led to Abouhassan’s charge. Bridgeman assigned McMillan to investigate the police assault allegation the day after the incident.

Abouhassan told the hearing he believes the investigation was done with the goal of protecting their colleague rather than finding the truth and serving justice.

“I didn’t feel they were investigating in good faith, that they were looking out for my best interests,” Abouhassan said at the hearing. “If they had done a proper investigation and looked around, I would have been cleared.”

This is Bridgeman’s second Police Act hearing related to the altercation between Van Buskirk and Abouhassan. In March, an adjudicator found him and fellow officer Staff Sgt. Patrick Keane not guilty of discreditable conduct, ruling the prosecution had failed to meet “the standard of clear and convincing evidence” to find them guilty of attempting to broker an improper deal to drop the assault charge against Abouhassan in exchange for the doctor dropping his own complaint against Van Buskirk.

Abouhassan told the hearing the charges came just as he was about to graduate from his medical school residency, forcing him to inform the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons, delay applying for his full-time licence and put off starting his practice. He also now has to answer in the affirmative when border officers ask him if he’s ever been charged with a crime, making it challenging to attend professional conferences in the U.S.

The impact of the criminal charge was “worse than the assault,” Abouhassan testified.

“I felt like I was being punished twice, assaulted then charged for something I didn’t even do,” he said. “Devastating is a good word to use.”

Defence lawyer Andrew McKay focused on the fact Abouhassan declined to provide a statement to police when asked by McMillan, referring him to his lawyer instead. He went over surveillance footage of the attack in detail, suggesting that to investigating officers working without a statement providing Abouhassan’s side of the story, it could appear that the doctor was fighting back.

“If you went through this frame by frame, without explanation, this looks like two men involved in a fight,” McKay said.

Abouhassan disagreed, saying the video footage combined with the knowledge that he’s visually impaired and statements from several witnesses should have led police to conclude he wasn’t the aggressor and didn’t fight back.

“There is a zero per cent chance I’m throwing a punch,” he said. “I’m visually impaired…. I can’t defend myself.”

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